


Force of Nature

by Teaotter



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-20
Updated: 2005-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment in Ororo's past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Force of Nature

"Oh, Ro. Your beautiful hair."

Ororo kicked the covers to the foot of her pallet, but didn't open her eyes. "Mother?"

"Yes, Ro. It's me."

Ororo sat up, running one hand over her bare scalp. In her mind's eye she could see her mother sitting beside the blankets, with her braided hair falling over one shoulder of the gray sweater Ro had picked out for her. The year before she died. "I won't go back."

Her mother sighed. "It's getting harder for you to hold out the goddess, daughter. I can see you struggling. It makes my heart ache for you."

Ro plucked blindly at the coarse blankets. She'd shaved her head the night before, when she'd realized the dye wouldn't color the white any more. White hair on a young thief was too recognizable – at least, that's what she'd told herself, staring at her reflection in of the mirror. The sharp chemical smell still hovered in the room and clung to her hands.

"I don't believe in their gods, Mama. And if I did," she turned her head toward her mother's voice, "I wouldn't want to believe in any goddess with so much power to destroy."

Ororo remembered her time with her mother's people and their religion. They were the ones who had told her that she was chosen by the storm goddess. They had helped her through those first few months of summoning the rains with every passing frustration, had suffered through the seemingly endless series of water spouts and ball lightning as she struggled to channel the power that thrummed through her. In the end, they gave her one choice: to give in to the goddess, or die.

Ro had picked a third option, and run away. Whenever she felt the goddess try to reach her, she deliberately turned her back. It made her life – smaller, perhaps, but this was no gift she wanted.

"There is the gentle rain that brings the sprouts in the spring. There is the soft wind that blows in the grasses."

Her mother's voice was soft, patient, and it made Ro angry. "And there's the lightning that starts fires in the market, and the floodwaters that wash away the poor women with no clean water. The wind can blow down trees and tear buildings open." She felt the first stirrings on the edge of her awareness with a flash of despair. Calm. Breathe. "Don't argue with me about this, Mother."

"I'm sorry, darling." She almost felt the hand on her arm. "I never meant for your life to be so hard."

Ro shrugged. "It's not too bad, Mama. I have friends, I get by –"

"Stealing –"

"And I have fun. Last week, I learned to ride my skateboard down the handrails at the museum. The speed and the slide – it feels like flying!"

"You are so stubborn." But there was laughter behind it, and love.

Ro sighed and let her resolve fill her. "I can't let her win. I can't."

"Oh, Daughter." Again, there was that soft touch on her arm. "Just because a goddess is wild, it doesn't make her cruel."

"That's what they believe. She strikes by her whim, kills without compassion – they said I could only try to appease her, but I couldn't control her." Again, Ro felt the stirrings of air in the room, and far above the room.

"So you fight her, and yourself." She felt a wave of comfort as her mother's arms wrapped around her. "Daughter. Choose a battle you can win. Fight *them*."

Ro didn't dare to move, for fear that her mother's arms would drop away. Her mother had never come to her so strongly before. But the stirrings didn't fade. "I don't understand."

"They're only human, darling, and just as likely to be wrong as anyone else. They can teach you ways to make it easier to live with the goddess, and you need that. But you do not have to accept their beliefs about her. Follow your own heart."

"I don't know if I can go back to them. I don't know if I can live there and be this thing they think I am." She didn't want to feel the wind blow, to feel the way she could make it turn into something wild and dangerous.

"Then don't be that. Be yourself. Heavens, child, you've been fighting a goddess for two years now. Do you really think a few cousins are any match for you?"

Her mother laughed, and Ro couldn't help but laugh with her. It would be so nice to relax for a moment, to stop fighting. To stop being afraid of the wildness in herself and believe that she could give in to it without causing harm.

The laughter faded slowly, and with it, her mother's touch. Before she slipped away entirely, Ro reached up to cup her mother's cheek. "I love you, Mama." She felt the smile under her fingers.

When she opened her eyes, her mother was gone. But the first rays of the sun were shining warmly on her face.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written as a character sample for X-Factor 2010, an online rpg, and therefore is based on a slightly AU version of Storm's history. It takes place during Storm's adolescence in Cairo, long before she joins the X-Men.


End file.
